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HOW WAS IT CAUSED? Doctors in Pennsylvania are faced with some of the highest medical malpractice insurance rates in the country. Because they can't afford to pay for malpractice insurance, many of our local physicians are shutting their doors. Some are moving out of state to set up practice elsewhere - where costs are far more reasonable. Still others are retiring altogether. And young doctors, looking to set up a brand new practice, are reluctant to consider Pennsylvania because of these problems. Who can blame them when you look at facts like these? | |
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Pennsylvania physicians, particularly specialists, pay anywhere up to 5 times MORE for malpractice coverage than their colleagues in neighboring states. |
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While the problem is statewide, physicians in Eastern Pennsylvania have been hit especially hard by escalating insurance costs. This year alone, physicians in Eastern Pennsylvania have seen their malpractice premiums soar by more than double? in some cases to over $100,000 per doctor. |
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Compounding the problem, these premium increases are coming at the same time when doctors' reimbursements from insurance companies are being cut year after year. |
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(Source for the above information:
Pennsylvania Orthopaedic Society, Nov 27, 2002) |
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Due to the rising cost for malpractice
coverage, more and more doctors literally cannot afford to maintain their methods of practice. To lessen their liability - and
keep costs at a manageable rate - some are refusing to take on new patients. Others are simply closing their practices
forever. |
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Unless this crisis is resolved, we are
heading toward a severe shortage of capable physicians and a major crisis in local health care. |
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IT AFFECTS YOU AND YOUR FAMILY. Skyrocketing malpractice insurance costs are affecting more and more of our area physicians. How are you and your loved ones affected? |
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Your access to quality health care is
becoming endangered. |
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More and more of our finest physicians are retiring early or leaving the state to practice
elsewhere - where malpractice premiums are nowhere near as high as Pennsylvania's. |
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A reduction in doctors increases patient
loads for those who continue to practice. And it decreases the amount of quality time that remaining doctors can spend with
each patient.
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